Pharmaceutical companies are worried about the threat of tariffs and what they would mean for investment in Europe, the Chief Executive of the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association has said.
US President Donald Trump has said he expects to impose tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals in the near future.
A number of pharmaceutical companies sent a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, warning that the EU could lose €100bn in new investment unless there is a rethinking on regulation and pricing.
The letter was sent by around 30 CEOs of some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
The companies – including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca – said they face cost disadvantages in Europe versus the US, where drugs are sold at prices that on average are twice that of some European countries such as France, French business newspaper Les Echos reported.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, the IPHA’s Oliver O’Connor said pharmaceutical investment is “very long-term and costly”.
There are structural problems in Europe which have made Europe a less competitive place for medicine development than the United States, he said.
The letter to Ms von der Leyen, he said, was about “an EU-wide market” and looking forward to future investments.
In the letter, the companies also asked the EU to simplify regulations, noting that companies currently must conduct multi-country clinical trials for drugs.
The industry also said in the letter that it takes issue with a fee the sector will soon need to pay to treat wastewater from micropollutants, Les Echos said.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
“Do we want to see higher medicine prices in Europe at the moment? No. Do we want to see the urban wastewater treatments directive dropped? No. We fully subscribe to the polluter pays principle, which is that everyone should pay for their share,” Mr O’Connor said.
“Unfortunately, the directive at the moment says only the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries should pay. There are clearly a lot more of these micropollutants going into wastewater systems than just from our industry.
“What we’re asking for there, is to be true and faithful to the polluter pays principle, that the real sources should be identified. This is what we’ve asked for in Ireland,” Mr O’Connor said.
EU medical and pharmaceutical product exports to the US totalled about €90bn in 2023, according to Eurostat.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office this week show that Irish exports of medical and pharmaceutical products jumped by €9.2bn, or 145.7%, to €15.6bn in February on the same month last year.
Sustainability is key, says pharma expert
Prof Michael Barry, Clinical Director of the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, said it is about “getting that happy medium” where the industry is rewarded for its investment and innovation but that the taxpayer can pay for medications.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, Prof Barry said they are paying “very high prices” at the moment for cancer drugs and drugs for rare diseases.
“The industry can’t have it every way. You can’t have long periods of exclusivity and at the same time be charging very, very high prices for drugs that sometimes don’t work very well,” he said.
“It’s exceptional that we would ever find a cancer drug that was value for money, and indeed drugs for rare diseases. That’s the issue here. With the way things are going – our drugs budget is moving on now to €4bn a year – the question is sustainability.
“We do need generics and drugs that have lost their exclusivity to generate the savings to enable us to pay for new medicines,” added Prof Barry.
